Social Value — Looking Beyond Business
We put Social Value at the heart of our work – operating with integrity, operating responsibly and caring about all people
At KBR we look beyond business and put Social Value at the very heart of how we operate. We recognise how crucial it is to embed Social Value at the early planning stages and within the design of all our work and projects, enabling us to achieve Whole Life Value. Working in this way means we can deliver more positive impact to our local communities and to the tax payer getting the best Social Return on Investment (SROI).
Our Social Value performance is inextricably linked to our Global Sustainability Policy which in turn follows the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Our UK operation continues to build and strengthen aiming to achieve the very best and most meaningful social, economic and environmental outcomes in all our projects’ local areas. At KBR, we are extremely proud of our long history supporting critical work that benefits people’s lives and we take pleasure in always operating with integrity, operating responsibly and caring about all people.
We are committed to the National TOMs Framework which measures social value to a consistent standard and we’re focusing on the framework’s five themes by promoting skills and employment; supporting the growth of responsible businesses; creating healthier, safer, more resilient communities; protecting and improving the environment, and promoting social innovation. We also support you, our clients, in creating carefully designed and bespoke Social Value plans.
As a part of our evolving Social Value Plan, KBR are committed to adopting the right systems to support the project life-cycle; forecasting, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of all Social Value initiatives and activities across all projects. For the purpose of this particular report KBR have partnered with SocialProfit Calculator.
Using Social Profit Calculator’s tools we apply a set of standardised measures to our projects which assess and modify their impact:
‘Deadweight’ The change that would have happened anyway
‘Displacement’ Whether an intervention displaced something else or had an unintended consequence
‘Attribution’ Recognition that part of an outcome was because of another intervention. This helps us avoid over-claiming the values our projects deliver.
The standardised impact measures we use are based on the HM Treasury Additionality Guidance and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) Additionality Guidance. They measure against different types of activity from housing, employment and training to health and mental health among others.
“Our Mission is to safely deliver any project, any time, in any environment for the benefit of our customers, employees and shareholders but critically for the communities that we serve.”
2019 – 2020 Overview
As a business, we have fully embraced our responsibility to achieving the very best Social Impact and Value that we can and are delighted to announce that February 2020 saw the appointment of Suzanne Harding as Head of Social Value, who will lead on the exciting journey of delivering against our evolving UK Social Value plan. Suzanne has been with the KBR business since 2016 and brings with her a host of collaboration and systems leadership skills, which are pivotal to the continued success and advancement of our performance in this area.
“I am delighted to be leading KBR on their exciting and ambitious journey to maximise on the delivery of real and meaningful benefits to our society, environment and economy. KBR are highly committed to delivering Social Value for our communities and are constantly searching for opportunities to achieve better outcomes and improve lives. Being a part of making a difference in this way, is a truly fabulous opportunity and I am constantly impressed with the great passion and appetite that we have at all levels in our business to excel further.”
SUZANNE HARDING HEAD OF SOCIAL VALUE, GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS INT.
In 2019 we evaluated our UK based projects for the very first time allowing us to understand fully the social, environmental and economic impact – in other words the social value – that we have delivered. By calculating the Social Return on Investment (SROI) and Economic Impact we created a baseline that now allows us to understand the progress we are making in all areas, on all UK-based projects. We do this by regularly measuring, reporting, reviewing and setting objectives. It also allows us to share best practice across the wider KBR business, with all of our stakeholders and, further, to share among other organisations. In doing so we are supporting the UK to make great strides with a truly collaborative Social Value effort.
Despite COVID-19 KBR has been able to create an additional £162,396,484 in social value when compared to 2019. This represents a significant increase and demonstrates our commitment to social value creation.
Highlights of our 2020 Social Value Report
Procurement Policy Note 06/20
In September of 2020 we saw Action Note PPN 06/20 launch a new model to deliver Social Value through government’s commercial activities. Central Government organisations will use the model to take account of the additional social benefits that can be achieved in the delivery of its contracts, using policy outcomes, aligned with their priorities. From 1st January 2021 Social Value will now be ‘explicitly evaluated’ in all Central Government procurement where the requirements are related and proportionate to each contract – a considerable milestone from the Social Value Act 2012 which asked Social Value to be ‘considered’ as a part of their procurement process. The policy is comprised of many specific outcomes that are grouped under five themes as follows:
- COVID-19 Recovery
- Tackling Economic Inequality
- Equal Opportunity
- Wellbeing
- Fighting Climate Change
KBR have incorporated these themes throughout their Social Value design and are excited to make their significant contribution with initiatives that deliver against the policy outcomes.
We are dedicated to working collaboratively on Social Value and in alignment with the Social Value International mission “to change the way the world accounts for value, to tackle inequality, environmental degradation and improve all of our wellbeing”.
